av8r wrote:Using these "tools" will get you infected and the new boot sector viruses and malware are not easily detected before they have keylogged you.

Oh, great. What if I put all my songs on my 2nd internal hard drive, and anything else like pictures I want to save, and format C: and reinstall XP? Would that malware or keylogging just re-execute when I play the songs?

Dann757 wrote:What if I put all my songs on my 2nd internal hard drive, and anything else like pictures I want to save,

Images, video, and audio files are data files. Generally speaking they can't be affected by viruses because they don't execute. There's been some minor exploits I'm aware of that have exploited the meta data.

Dann757 wrote:What if I put all my songs on my 2nd internal hard drive, and anything else like pictures I want to save,

Images, video, and audio files are data files. Generally speaking they can't be affected by viruses because they don't execute. There's been some minor exploits I'm aware of that have exploited the meta data.

The last few months we've had quite a few infections where the user had simply run a video or audio file which had some malware injected into the whitespace. Typically what has happened is the file contains a script that opens a web connection to an infected host which installs a dropper. This is a relatively new vector that is becoming much more prevalent.

Bottom line is...if you're going to break the law by downloading copyrighted content without paying for it, be prepared for the consequences. BTW...we have also seen audio and video files that beacon back to a host with your information so that the copyright holder can identify you and sue you for damages.